340 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



I was never able to find a Tree-Creeper's nest in Downing, 

 but the birds themselves I often saw running in mouse-like 

 fashion about the trunks of the lime trees, and sometimes I 

 noticed young ones with them. This looks as if they did really 

 nest somewhere about the grounds, or else in what was then the 

 old Botanic Gardens just across Pembroke Street, where the New 

 Museums now are. 



With a telescope I have seen a pair of Tomtits fussing about 

 an old Book's nest, and did not doubt they made their own nests 

 there. The eccentricities of the Tomtit are more than I can 

 find space for, interesting as my notes are. 



On Sundays it was quite a sight to see the granivorous birds 

 flocking over from Downing, attracted by the sweepings of the 

 then Corn Exchange opposite. Among them was what we 

 schoolboys called the "Writing Lark" — that is, the Yellow 

 Bunting. Indeed, I think there was hardly a more favourable 

 spot than this neighbourhood of St. Andrew's Hill for the study 

 of ornithology. At the back of our house was a large garden 

 which stretched right away to St. Andrew's Street, so altogether, 

 what with the Whitethroats and Flycatchers, there were few 

 small birds I did not make acquaintance with. 



Jackdaws, Magpies, and Starlings were not so numerous in 

 Downing as in some of the other colleges with ancient buildings 

 and towers. They came more as visitors than for purposes of 

 nest-making. But they would have to be included in a complete 

 list of the birds' nests I have seen in Downing, which would run 

 as follows : — Book, Jackdaw, Magpie, Starling, Greenfinch, Haw- 

 finch (?), Chaffinch, Linnet, Bullfinch, Wood-Lark, Pied Wagtail, 

 Tree-Pipit, Meadow-Pipit, Nuthatch, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal- 

 Tit, Song- Thrush, Blackbird, Wood-Pigeon. I need not say 

 Cuckoos made the Titlarks and some other birds do unpaid 

 nursing work for their young ones. 



Birds recorded by me as having been seen, but not, as far as 

 I knew, nesting in Downing, were the Baven, Mistle-Thrush, 

 Whitethroat, Sky-Lark, Flycatcher, Wren, Bobin, Goldcrest, 

 Blackcap, and I also record having heard the Nightingale. 



I used to see in those days some birds in the winter-time of a 

 kind not likely to be seen in Downing were it not that in the 

 then old Botanic Gardens there was a pond to which came 



